Day 31: A Zero At Ghost Ranch

Today was a full zero day (no hiking) at Ghost Ranch. I mentioned
that this ranch and a home near it is where the artist Georgia O’Keeffe
spent 40yrs. The information on the ranch’s brochure says that they have
21,000 acres. As you can see in the picture below, there are animals
around including sheep that seem to get out once during the day to graze
on the main lawn here. The skull below is the symbol of Ghost Ranch and
a similar version was famously painted by O’Keeffe.

Something
that I found really cool is that from Ghost Ranch, you can see a
peak that stands out called Pedernal. On day 29, when we were hiking
over the mesa the second half of the day, the peak stood out to me and I
acutally took the time to stop and look it up on a PeakFinder app that I
have. When we arrived at Ghost Ranch, I found out that Pedernal was an
inspiration for, and featured in, many of O’Keeffe’s photos. Here is
Pedernal today as the sun was setting and I have a picture of it from
another angle on Day 29 as we hiked over the mesa.

Here are two of O’Keeffe’s paintings with Pedernal in both and the skull in another. Pretty cool!
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Deer’s Skull With Pedernal, 1936

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Pedernal, 1942﻿

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The wifi here was great and I
got to Skype for about an hour with my twin and my nephew, Lucas who
was born while I was on the PCT in 2011…Lucas is about to become a big
brother in August when Siobhan has boy #2. Skype is such an awesome
thing!

I
got another resupply box and I swear it’s like Christmas everytime! I
got another Entertainment Weekly, some awesome cookies from my aunt
Linda(which all the hikers enjoyed!), and some snacks and inspirational
quotes from Hamburger Helper(who I first met when he trail angeled me on
Day 7 of my PCT hike!). Thank you to everyone!!!

The
rest of my zero day was spent catching up on my Hulu shows. Today was a
Grey’s Anatomy marathon. I thought this season took a great turn and
the show hit it’s stride again. I was quite entertained! The library
here is super comfy and I was very excited to lounge in the oversized
chair all day. Yep, a pretty great zero of RELAXING!

There
are 15 hikers here and all are hiking out at sometime tomorrow. I’ll be
with the same crew I’ve been with and plan to stick with them until
Pagosa Springs in the beginning of June where I will meet with Rockin’
and her son and they will join me from there. I am kicking myself for
failing to get a picture of everyone that’s here but they are the
regular crew I’m with and then Puck, Mark, Steady, Skeeter, M, NM (get
it, M&M), Sunday, Annie, Sweet As, and Aquaman. Here are some of us at breakfast. We hike on tomorrow
morning and I’m looking forward to a fun section ahead!